What Are Friends of Medium?
New “Friend of Medium” membership means pay-walled stories can be shared for free and writers that Friends read earn more
This article explains what a “Friend of Medium” (or what Friends of Medium) membership is, comprehensively. It does not intend to persuade readers to sign up for the membership OR not to sign up.
Friends of Medium reads increase earnings of writers whose stories they read
On 28 November 2023 Alex Benzer announced on Medium’s official blog that a new membership plan is available, the “Friend of Medium” tier.
“Contribute 4x more to writers and strengthen your support for the Medium community with our new membership level.”
The Medium Help Centre declares:
“Friends of Medium are members who pay more money for their membership in order to give more support to Medium and the writers they love and read.”
When Friends of Medium spend time reading member-only stories, they’ll generate four times more earnings for those writers compared to regular members. This revenue share is calculated in the same way as our standard Medium membership: it’s based on a combination of read and listen time, claps, highlights, replies, and follows. The difference is that it’s multiplied by a factor of four.
This new tier means paying 3 times as much per month or $15 USD monthly, rather than $5 USD. For me in Australia, $15 USD is currently $23 AUD, more than what I pay for my monthly mobile phone usage.
The benefit of being a FOM is that you can help other writers with increased views and reads of their stories and increased earnings. Not everything is done for money or for “what’s in it for me” financially.
There are altruistic and other values in being a FOM if you can afford it and want to be a FOM.
For example, by sharing FOM Friend Links to writers’ stories, you are helping to distribute stories outside of the Medium membership. This gains the writers’ earnings and exposure and may draw more readers to sign up as paying members.
A FOM becomes a pseudo-curator, distributing what they believe to be great or worthwhile stories across their networks.
Also, collaterally, Medium’s revenue, by taking some of the membership fees for administrative costs is bumped up with more subscriptions. Medium had a standard payment processing fee of 2.9%+$0.30 in January 2022 at least.
Medium is entitled to revenue from somewhere, such as from membership fees. It is a business and needs money to maintain the platform.
Below is the link to the official information in Medium’s Help Centre about becoming a special “Friend of Medium” (FOM).
Medium Lets Friends Share Stories For Free
“Friends of Medium will be able to create and share Friend Links for any paywalled story. When non-members follow these links and bypass the paywall, their read time is factored into the writer’s earnings. This means you can drive more earnings and reach for writers you love by sharing Friend Links to their stories.” ← — Alex Benzer
Basically, if you are in the Member Partner Program, by default stories on Medium can be “locked” or put behind a paywall, meaning that only paying members of Medium can read such stories.
However, Friend Links are a tool for writers to guarantee that friends, family, and fans have free access to their paywalled stories.
Please note that readers who are NOT signed into Medium CANNOT comment upon or clap for or highlight a story that is shared by a Friend Link (whether shared by a “Friend of Medium” or not).
Furthermore, the readers for all Friend Links (whether shared by a “Friend of Medium” or not) will see a banner notice at the top of the shared page telling the reader that it is a story being shared, with the name of the member sharing the story.
This is a way of promoting yourself if you share a Friend Link, whether you are a “Friend of Medium” or not, because readers can go to your Medium Profile page from the shared story.
Readers reading for free can click on the name of the person sharing the Friend Link to go to their Medium Profile page and can click on “Become a member” to sign up for free or as a paying member.
If someone shares one of your stories via a Friend Link you won’t know who it was or where it was shared. All you will know is the number of Friend Links shared via yourself or a “Friend of Medium” on the story Stats page. Keep in mind that VIEWS are “hits” or visits to the story page, not necessarily reads of 30 seconds or longer!
Writer Friend Link (WFL)
If a writer shares a Friend Link with someone else, called Person X, that someone else can read the story using that link only, without having to be a paying member of Medium.
The writer is in control of all initial distribution of her stories via Friend Links in the aforementioned case.
Let’s call it the sharing of a “Writer’s Friend Link” (WFL).
The “Common Questions about Friend Links” section on the Medium Help Centre information page states that this original Writer Friend Link can then be shared by Person X and others using this original WFL.
If a paying member of Medium reads a story shared by a Writer’s Friend Link” (which of course is possible, depending where or how the link is shared), the writer incurs earnings for the story.
You may (or may not!) know that writers have had Friend Links for quite some time in order to share paywalled stories with friends, families, and fans. Friend Links shared by authors or publication editors will work the exact same way, meaning that reads to these links will not generate revenue.
This means that a WFL will NOT incur earnings unless the reader happens to be a paying member of Medium.
Did you know that Friend Links can also be shared by Publication Editors? I am an Editor for a Publication on Medium and have observed the availability of this function first-hand.
If I am NOT a “Friend of Medium” and I share a Friend Link to any of the stories published in my Publication, the read will not incur earnings unless the reader is a paying member of Medium.
It’s best practice for an Editor of a Publication to ASK their writers if it’s okay for the Editor to share their stories via Friend Links, IF the Editor would like to do so! This is because the stories thus shared won’t incur earnings if the reader is NOT a paying member of Medium.
“Friend of Medium” (FOM) Friend Links
From the end of November 2023 paying members who are on the “Friend of Medium” tier or payment plan, paying $15 USD per month, can now choose to share Friend Links to ANY other writers’ stories!
Friend Links shared by Friends of Medium bypass the paywall and pay writers for reading engagement, even if those readers are not Medium members.
Alex Benzer in the official announcement about FOM Friend Links stated:
When non-members follow these links and bypass the paywall, their read time is factored into the writer’s earnings. This means you can drive more earnings and reach for writers you love by sharing Friend Links to their stories.
As noted before, the Help Centre states:
Friend Links shared by authors or publication editors will work the exact same way, meaning that reads to these links will not generate revenue.
This means that FOM Friend Links to stories written by the “Friend of Medium” (FOM) sharing a Friend Link will NOT incur earnings (unless the reader happens to be a paying member of Medium).
In other words, a FOM cannot generate his or her own Friend Links and share them and earn from them if a non-paying member reads such stories.
The Flow of Friends of Medium Earnings & their Friend Links and non-FOMs work flows
Click on the sketch below, created by me, to demonstrate a kind of work flow for using Friend Links and incurring earnings for stories on Medium!
Now you know you’re Medium A, B, C, D, E won’t you become a “Friend of Medium” please? Not really, just joking around and trying to make up a lingo.
B, C, D, and E represent the first people whom either a Medium writer has shared her or his story with via a Friend Link OR the first people whom a paying member of Medium on a “Friend of Medium” plan has shared YOUR story with via a FOM Friend Link.
And drilling down to a second level where B, C, D, and E share the initial Friend Link (for example, shared on Facebook or other social media) to, I guess, F, G, H, I, J, and K, well, the impact on your earnings of reads by F, G, H, I, J, and K, and beyond (as long as the initial link is shared) will be as reflected in the “tiles” or 5 boxes at the top of the sketch (unless I’m mistaken).
And now, drum-roll~~ 🎵 for the nitty gritty, as I love delving into the details. Some say “the devil is in the detail,” meaning there may be surprises beyond what’s on the surface!
I have noted some Medium writers’ concerns with the distribution of their own stories. I understand that some view their controlling the use of Friend Links to their own stories as restraining the sharing of their stories outside of the Medium membership.
It is a person’s right to have their own preference, for example, NOT to have anyone share their stories outside of the domain in which they first placed it in. And this preference should be respected, even if it doesn’t change the fact that there are now Friend of Medium Friend links.
There’s a reason for everything. And some writers felt a modicum of safety and constraint with those able to see and use their content, by knowing that only they were sharing Friend Links to their stories. This is, of course, in addition to their stories being read by paying members.
So please respect their map of their territory if you are a respectful person. Not everyone is the same, so respect people for their unique beliefs or preferences if they don’t harm anyone else!
The logic of not having anyone, except the writer, sharing Friend Links to their stories is not having the writer’s stories as widespread as “Friend of Medium” Friend Links may facilitate.
Medium’s terms and conditions state that they can distribute stories pretty much how they like. Not to say that this means a person should NOT be aggrieved by any changes made by Medium under the terms, because we are all different.
There’s no need to be contemptuous, derogatory, supercilious, or nasty toward others because of their (harmless) preferences, even if their viewpoint or belief is in the minority. You wouldn’t want others to be so towards you just because of your preferences.
I am happy for “Friends of Medium” to share Friend Links to my stories!
My current concern is highlighted in yellow. I realize that some people want to “tip” or financially and otherwise support certain writers (ostensibly, writers of stories on Medium that they like reading), and being a FOM is a system automatically and widely enabling this.
But my near future vision can’t help seeing big differences on a sliding scale, for a while, for different writers on Medium.
The “equal playing field” just got upturned in terms of the following: unless MOST of the paying member readers on Medium are Friends of Medium (FOMs), SOME writers stories will NOT be read and/or shared by FOMs.
Yes, I know that the “playing field” isn’t equal for many arenas of human endeavour, but that doesn’t mean any of them can be (or should be) ignored. And no, I am not saying that I disagree with the “Friend of Medium” membership.
The “unequal playing field at the beginning” opens up vistas in the land of the few FOMs, of writers be-friending FOMs in a bid to get them to reciprocate their engagement with them by reading and sharing their stories!
It also heralds scenarios of FOMs harvesting Friend Links and creating pseudo-Medium websites or pages, extricating payment from readers for their services. Medium’s Trust and Safety Centre will have its hands full monitoring the placement of FOM Friend Links.
But maybe I am wrong about the perception of an unequal playing field. Perhaps those who don’t have a “Friend of Medium” friend will be delighted to know that other writers will get support from their FOM supporters. 😄
And they may wait with bated breath for more friends to come online and thus increase the chances of their stories being read by a FOM.
It’s not that a writer’s stories have to be “good enough” to be read by a FOM, so hopefully that illogical fallacy won’t appear. Getting read by a FOM is a match up between what the writer writes and the reader who likes what they write being a “Friend of Medium.”
Currently the number of Medium subscribers is close to one million according to Medium. And the number of active writers is around 175,000 (with 70% of these writers locking stories behind the paywall) according to Techjury’s sources.
That means potentially a lot of non Friends of Medium reading YOUR stories until more and more members upgrade or new members join as a “Friend of Medium.”
In the interests of the individual person’s right to “tip” or increase their support of their favored or favorite writers, the increased earnings and exposure from the FOMs and the FOM Friend Links are super duper.
However, it could be a while before the “Friend of Medium (FOM)” memberships increase to be in the interests of the majority of writers on Medium!
A FOM member reading this may think, “that’s the way the cookie crumbles, it’s not something to get upset about.” But I am not upset about it or jealous of writers getting reads from FOMs. I am just pointing out that there may be a bumpy road of transition to increasing “Friend of Medium” memberships.
One (at least me) wonders if in ten years time, the base membership rate will be $15 USD or the equivalent then after inflation? Perhaps by then the “norm” for new members of Medium will be to join as a “Friend of Medium” to get their congratulations from Medium and a nice little yellow badge on their profile page.
Of course, earnings from a FOM’s reads and Friend Links will advantage the writers whose work they are reading and sharing and I am not disagreeing or dissatisfied with this.
What I am wondering is will these FOM Friend Links boosting stories out into the stratosphere boost or increase new memberships of Medium?
What if non paying members opt for reading via FOM Friend Links only and don’t see a need to sign up themselves as a paying member?
Pretend that the increased sharing of stories via FOM Friend Links doesn’t return a huge or a nice growth in Medium paying members.
Well then, could some writers be better off with earnings incurred by a natural or organic growth of membership, without the Friends of Medium members, with such earnings being based upon more than Read Time?
Let’s see how things go and if the “earnings algorithm” has to be tweaked for payouts resulting from FOM Friend Links so that the earnings from FOM Friend Links are equivalent to earnings from paying members!
The stats for the number of reads of stories via FOM Friend Links and for the number of new paying memberships (at the base rate OR the FOM tier) will be interesting to know over time. It remains to be seen if Medium shares such statistics.
You will receive more earnings than you did before the “Friend of Medium” memberships started IF a FOM who usually reads your stories, reads your stories and/or shares your stories via FOM Friend Links.
But for some writers, this may come at the “cost” of FOMs sharing their content outside of the Medium membership.
Nobody can say that earnings from reads via FOM Friend Links will be more than what the writer would receive if she or he doesn’t get reads from FOM Friend Links because nobody has a crystal ball. Time will tell how many writers get reads from Friends of Medium!
What if you don’t get a single read via a FOM Friend Link (FL) but hundreds of new paying members sign up and find and read all of your stories (which incur earnings based upon not just Read Time, but on claps, highlights, responses, and follows also)? Perhaps this would net you more earnings than if you get a few reads from a FOM reading your stories and/or sharing a FL.
Nobody knows the exact algorithms for earnings based upon “reading time” for stories read via FOM Friend Links versus the calculations, which embrace reading time and the number of claps, highlights, responses, and followers for reads by paying members.
On the issue of earnings, writers in the Member Partner Program (MPP) are eligible to receive algorithm-based earnings, not a time or piece-based wage or salary, so don’t confuse the two. A lot of disgruntled writers complain that Medium doesn’t pay them enough, which is a surprise, given that they are NOT salary or wage earners.
In fact, the MPP is a bonus and a good one at that, with a starting point. Once upon a time there were no earnings for stories published on Medium.
So, on that note I will end my musings or ramblings and leave you to ponder. Speaking for myself, I am grateful for the “Friend of Medium” tier as long as it is used ethically and its effects are monitored.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
To be a “Friend of Medium” or not!
